God’s Love for Us
What You Should Know
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Many know that God is Love, but there are many in the world that do not understand love… Many who feel unloved and even unlovable… They feel unloved, but if they only knew – only understood – how much God Loves them, the world would be an entirely different place…
In fact, if everyone, you and me included, truly understood love and our worth to God, we would truly have Heaven on Earth.
Would we not???
So, in this sermon, we will try to gain a new appreciation of God’s Love and a new understanding of our worth to God, Almighty…
I
Romans 5:8:
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
We will take a look at just what this verse means to us, to our personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
We all know, of course, that God’s Love is awesome, inspiring, all-encompassing, and beyond human practice or even understanding… Sure. We Do. We really do know all of these things… After all, we have been told these things over and over and over again… yes???
I mean, we know them to be true, but let us take a sincere and honest look at just how much we understand what we know and the level of appreciation we have for what we know to be true…
Romans 5:8 is actually like starting a book from the second chapter… you can do it, you can even enjoy it, and the meat of the story will still come through, even though you don’t have a complete understanding of how or why it all began…
I mean a good story is a good story, even if you don’t know why it came about…Yes???
Well, now, we will take a look at why God commended His Love toward us by allowing Christ to Die for us while we were yet sinners… while we were, indeed, the enemies that caused His Death…
II
As Christians, we believe the statement of Romans 5:8. We take it as absolute truth, with little – if any – thought behind why it is true, or why God would do such a thing.
I believe we do this because Romans 5:8 would be the second chapter of a book that would be entitled, God’s Love for Us…
You might want to know what the FIRST chapter would be… yes??? Well, I am glad you asked…
Chapter 1 of this particular Book would be:
John 1:1-3 and 14:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Oh… I know that a lot of us know the truth of these statements as well… these truths that would comprise the first chapter of the Book of God’s Love for us. What we do not realize, however, is the why of the actions represented by these truths…
As a people, we all feel pretty insignificant. A very large percentage of the world’s populace suffer from chronic low self-esteem, depression, sadness, oppression, lack of self-worth… and I would venture to guess that an even larger percentage of people struggle with thoughts and beliefs that they are simply unlovable…
III
It is because of this belief in our lack of self-worth that we fail to recognize the immensity of God’s Love for us, as well as the almost incomprehensible why of God’s magnificent actions, that the world is in the state that it is –– why humanity is lost to hatred and fear and oppression and sadness and everything else under that Sun that is negative and detrimental to our joy and self-worth.
You see, we Christians, know that Christ was sacrificed that we might enter Heaven and gain the privilege of spending eternity in God’s Perfect Presence… And in that knowing, we have blinded ourselves to the truth of our value to God…
I want to be perfectly clear in what I am conveying to you… You see it was not only that we might spend eternity with Him, that God intentionally had a son in order to sacrifice Him for our admittance into His Kingdom (through the immaculate conception in the Human Mary) … It was also – and perhaps more importantly – that He did so, because HE wanted to spend eternity with US… and yes, even though we are yet sinners.
I know, this is just a matter of perspective –– we spend eternity with Him, or He spends eternity with us. It is, however, the difference between going to visit family that want you with them to the extent that they help you pay for the trip, and then come out to greet you before you can even get to the door to knock… as compared to visiting relatives or in-laws that simply allow you to stay with them because you want to be there???
IV
But let’s get to the WHY behind the truth of what would be the introduction and the first two chapters of the Book of God’s Love for us. Let’s look at them again:
This would be the Book’s Introduction:
John 3:16:
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Chapter 1 would be:
John 1: 1-3, 14:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Chapter 2 would be:
Romans 5:8:
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
You See??? It began after the fall of satan and a third of the Heavenly Hosts and then his tempting Adam & Eve and their subsequent fall in the Garden of Eden.
It moved forward through the Old Testament and Humankind’s inability to follow His laws and enjoy His promises…even His chosen People failed to do so…
After the persistent failures of humanity, I can just image the conversation between God the Father, God the Word, and God the Holy Spirit.
It probably went something like this:
God the Father approaches God the Word and says, Our creatures, the humans, simply cannot withstand the power of satan. They have proven time and time again that they cannot withstand the power and the deceit of satan and his minions… and I cannot bear the thought of not being able to spend eternity with the creatures We made out of love and the desire to have them love us…
God the Word responds, Yes Humans do not have either the wisdom or the strength to prevail against the wiles and ways of our great enemy… We have watched them go the way of evil over and over again. We have wiped them out and started over with the family of Noah…
God the Holy Spirit speaks, Yes, satan is too powerful for them to resist, and the animal sacrifices temporarily cover their sins, but it would take a perfectly sinless Human sacrifice to pay the sin debt and allow Us to spend eternity with them…
And none of their kind will ever be able to live a sinless life, nor be willing to sacrifice themselves for the rest of mankind, even if it were possible for them to do so…
God the Father answers, here’s the thing that is unfair for them; satan has supernatural power and they are helpless against it, and they, in their own strength cannot resist it… and it will take a human that is sinless and perfect in love to pay for all of their sins, for all time…And he will have to be tempted in every way a human can be tempted and yet remain without sin…
God the Word says, Okay. Okay. I will be born of a human woman… a virgin. I will suffer as they suffer, I will be tempted in every way known to Humankind, I will allow satan and his minions to come against me…
God the Holy Spirit responds, Yes… I will be with you from the womb and while I will not prevent satan from tempting you, nor prevent you from giving in to temptation, I will provide you with the knowledge of the Father’s will and understanding of all things spiritual… This is what satan has and what satan adversely uses against humans…knowledge of all things spiritual. In this way it will be an equal contest…fair to both sides.
God the Father says to God the Word, are you willing to do this??? You WILL suffer as they suffer and you WILL be tempted as they are tempted… you WILL be fully human and because you are God become human, you will be limited to only the knowledge of God and how to utilize it to stand against evil…the punishment and death you will experience must be endured as a human alone, except for the knowledge of why you must endure… the payment for sin will be terrible and at the end you will die, alone, and as merely a human… if you do not, they are lost for all time…and we will NOT be able to spend eternity with them.
While we cannot understand and do not know the science, nor the mysteries, involved with The Holy Ghost Impregnating the Virgin May, we do know that He did, and we do know that it was done so we could have the promise of an atonement for our sins and so that God could spend eternity with us — if we would simply choose to believe in His Supernatural Acts of Love and thereby spend eternity with Him.
The above conversation, while purely speculative on my part, is based in Biblical fact and truth:
John 3:16:
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 1:1-3 and 14:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Romans 5:8:
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Luke 1:34-35:
34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
Matthew 1:22-23:
22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
I would like you to consider one other thing concerning God becoming human to pay for your sins, and mine, past present and future, for everyone who would simply believe, in faith, what God has done to redeem us to Himself in reality…
Humans inherit one copy of human genes from the mother and one copy from the father… So, every human born has a double portion of the curse and cellular corruption and death having arisen from the rebellion in the Garden of Eden… for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:17).
When, in rebellion and disobedience, they ate, cellular death and corruption entered into us all.
Jesus did NOT have only human genetics. He did have the curse from the Mother’s side, but his inheritance from the Father’s side, was that of God, the Holy Spirit… from fertilization of the egg in Mary’s womb, He had the Holy Spirit.
According to the Bible (Genesis chapters 1,6, & 7; and Leviticus chapter 11) everything was made after its own kind. I don’t know if you could call kind – species – but the fact is you cannot produce a centaur from a human and a horse, nor a mermaid from a fish and a human… Angels are made, they cannot procreate, nor can any new being of multiple kinds exist because everything was made after its own kind and it was made by God the Word, who made everything invisible and visible and if it was not made by Him, it is not made (Colossians 1:16) …
Only God can create life and certainly, only God can create new and different life…
Through Immaculate Conception, God created Jesus, who is both God and Human. As a human, he is the only begotten of God, as the Word become flesh, He is God — Fully God. Fully Human. Two kinds. Two Species, if you will… Two Natures…
Furthermore, every human, with the single exception of Jesus, did not and does not have the Spirit of God within them from the womb. They have to live long enough to have learned that there has to be a better way of living and long enough to have heard of the plan of salvation and the consequent empowerment of humans against evil…and that through obtaining the knowledge of God…
Humans have to live long enough to suffer enough from their wrong choices to cry out for Jesus to save them and only then are they equipped with the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of how to harness the supernatural power of God, Almighty, to sufficiently counter satan’s supernatural powers to deceive and destroy…supernatural powers of deception and inclinations of self-destruction.
Jesus, on the other hand, had the Holy Spirit indwelling Him from fertilization of the egg in Mary’s womb. However, He also had the human weaknesses, temptations, and free-will of fallen humanity, as His inheritance from the human, Mary.
It was, therefore, very possible for Him to have given in to temptation and to fail in His mission…it was very possible that Jesus would exercise his free-will and simply give up — as we humans so often do… Whereupon all of humanity would have been lost, left irredeemable.
Yet, He did NOT fail… God became man to save humanity… to save me. To save you. To save ANYONE who would simply believe by faith what God has accomplished on their behalf…
V
So, what – exactly – does Romans 5:8 mean???
Romans 5:8:
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
I will tell you what this means… it means that we have devalued our importance to God. It means that we have failed to appreciate who we are in God and Christ. It means that we have listened to the Enemy of God and all of His Deceit, concerning our lack of worth to God, or anyone else.
It means that instead of knowing and appreciating that the Love of God for each of us, and collectively as a whole species, is so great that He intentionally had a Son to punish sufficiently to pay for all of our rebellion, all of our disbelief and every ungodly action we have ever committed…
And He did it all… He accomplished it all, so that He could spend eternity with us — if we would simply choose to accept through belief and faith, the ransom He offered to make us redeemable… to allow us the choice of redemption…
It means that God left the throne, where all of His creations bowed down and did His every bidding, in order to come into this world as an infant, kicking and screaming in pain; to live a brief 33 years and then die in the most tortured and cruel and devastating way that mankind could devise… just so that He could spend eternity with us…
Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that you are worthless because of the sins you have committed in the past. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that you will never amount to anything. Don’t you EVER EVER listen to the enemy tell you how pitiful you are, how irredeemable you are…
Quit speaking defeat and defamation to and into yourself.
Begin to listen to the One Who Paid It ALL for you. Simply believe what God has done on your behalf, and all of the good promises of the Bible will be yours…
If you refuse to believe, then all of the promises to curse will be yours… There is no in-between….
So chose you this day who you will serve. Chose you this day; to whom you will give your beliefs.
As for me and my house: We choose to believe the Lord, God, Almighty.
John 3:17:
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
In John 12:47 Jesus said:
And if any man hears my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
Here are the Wonderful Mysteries of What God Has Done for You:
God, the Father intentionally had a Son to Sacrifice for you. To accomplish this, He created a new being like no other — just for You: The Only Begotten Son of God, who is also the Son of Man-kind…The only being of Two Kinds, or Natures in the entire universe…
You still feeling unimportant, useless, worthless???
If so: Shame. Shame. Shame on you.
Through Immaculate Conception, God, the Holy Spirit, impregnated the Human Woman Mary For You… To have this child that COULD – if you will simply believe – Save You…
God, The Word, Left His Reign in Heaven for You. He suffered horribly for You. He died, excruciatingly for You. He rose again and He returned again to Heaven to make Constant Intercession for You…
And He did it for me… and I don’t know about you, but I refuse to devalue myself, or what He has done for me… I believe in what He has done for me… I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what He has done for me, and I WILL NOT DEVALUE IT, DISHONOR IT, DISRESPECT IT, OR SPIT IN THE FACE OF GOD BY REFUSING TO BELIEVE IN HIM, OR WHO HE HAS CREATED ME TO BE, OR WHAT HE HAS ACCOMPLISHED ON MY BEHALF!!!
I will refuse to listen and believe the lies of God’s greatest enemy and I recognize satan as my greatest enemy… but He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world 1John 4:4.
And the Good News??? Well, I started this sermon talking about what the introductions and first two chapters of a Book called God’s Love for Us, would be…
Well, there IS a Book of God’s Love for Us… It is the Holy Bible!!! Read it and simply believe.
And I know I do… I believe… I believe.
If YOU would believe, if you would accept Christ and God and what HE has accomplished on your behalf… If you would cast off the enemy and his warped and twisted view of what God created in making and breathing life into you, pray right where you are at and receive Him and what He has done on your behalf…
If you have already received Christ as your personal Savior and have not fully and completely honored Him, and What He has accomplished on your behalf, pray right where you are at…
Repent right now and Honor Him for what He has won on your behalf.
Just Talk To God.
